100 Greece Quotes to Fuel Your Wanderlust (2023) (2024)

If you’re looking for a trip that holds both beautiful cliffs and beaches and gorgeous mountainous terrain, then Greece should be on top of your list. Mount Olympus, with its high peaks and deep gorges, is a must-visit for nature lovers. And beach buns can choose from hundreds of stunning islands like Crete, Ikaria, or Skopelos, nestled in the Aegean, Meditteranean, or the Ionian Sea. In addition to the glorious natural scenery, Greece is considered the birthplace of Western culture and is still strongly influenced by its ancient Greek mythological folklore. Culture lovers can indulge in age-old stories about fabled creatures while visiting remarkable landmarks like the Parthenon, dating back to the 5th century B.C. As a passionate Greece-lover, I compiled a list of 100 Greece quotes to inspire your next trip!

Beach of Damouchari in Pelion, Greece.

Greece is, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful countries to visit in Europe. Before we start with this list with quotes about Greece, I just want to mention that, if you are planning a trip to Greece, there are a few things to consider.

Some places in Greece suffer massively due to over-tourism. Islands like Mykonos and Santorini have a hard time swallowing the hordes of tourists visiting the islands during peak season. And landmarks in Athens are completely overcrowded during July and August.

We should make efforts to preserve these beautiful places and there are two simple things you can do. If you want to visit a popular location, go in the shoulder season. Mykonos still has greatweatherin October. And visiting Athens landmarks will be a less stressful experience when you go in April or May. If it’s hard for you to travel outside the peak season, consider traveling to lesser-known destinations in Greece. There are beautiful hidden gems to discover like thePelion Peninsulain Thessaly. And Thessaloniki is a wonderful alternative to Athens if you are a big-city person.

That said, let’s move over to the quotes about Greece! This is a diverse collection of Greece quotes said or written by travelers, writers, poets, and philosophers. Some refer to Greece itself. Others are beautiful quotes by ancient philosophers that elegantly capture the characteristics of Greek culture.

You can find Greece quotes on travel but also about Greek food, about life in Greece and Greece quotes and captions for Instagram.

Without further ado, let’s dive into this Greece quotes list!

Fakistra beach, a hidden gem in Greece.

Greece – the feeling of being lost in time and geography with months and years hazily sparkling ahead in a prospect of un-conjecturable magic.

– PATRICK LEIGH FERMOR –

Wisdom begins in wonder.

– SOCRATES (Ancient Greek philosopher)

The mention of Greece fills the mind with the most exalted sentiments and arouses in our bosoms the best feelings of which our nature is capable.

– JAMES MONROE –

It takes a lifetime for someone to discover Greece, but it only takes an instance to fall in love with her.

– HENRY MILLER –

I like reading, free diving, and hiking. But my favorite thing to do is travel anywhere in Greece. I love everything about that place.

– MAX IRONS –

One’s country is wherever one does well.

– ARISTOPHANES –

I’m on a Greek island here, it’s a beautiful day. I’m planning on passing out on the beach, snorkeling, you know maybe some watercolors, do a little cooking, more napping, eating, napping, contemplating mysteries of the universe, or nap, either one, or eat cheese, all of those are honorable options.

– ANTHONY BOURDAIN –

“All my life one of my greatest desires has been to travel-to see and touch unknown countries, to swim in unknown seas, to circle the globe, observing new lands, seas, people, and ideas with insatiable appetite, to see everything for the first time and for the last time, casting a slow, prolonged glance, then to close my eyes and feel the riches deposit themselves inside me calmly or stormily according to their pleasure, until time passes them at last through its fine sieve, straining the quintessence out of all the joys and sorrows.”

– NIKO KAZANTZAKIS –

How can any educated person stay away from the Greeks? I have always been far more interested in them than in science.

– ALBERT EINSTEIN –

We are all Greeks. Our laws, our literature, our religion, our arts, have their root in Greece.

– PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY –

I have a tattoo on my arm that says, in ancient Greek: “I am certain of nothing.” I think that’s a good operating principle.

– ANTHONY BOURDAIN –

Greece is like a mirror. It makes you suffer. Then you learn. – To live alone? – To live. With what you are.

– JOHN FOWLES –

“The most sacred place in the ancient world was the oracle at Delphi in central Greece. Kings, warriors and envoys travelled from across the known world to hear the prophecies of the oracle.
Above the gates at Delphi, a short inscription greeted every weary traveler:
Know thyself. This simple advice was considered the most important piece of knowledge anyone could possess. And to understand what the oracle told you, you first had to understand yourself.”

– BEAR GRYLLS –

One should not inquire too closely where ancient legends about the gods are concerned. Many things which reason rejects acquire some color of probability once you bring a god into the story.

– ARRIAN –

“After the endless disappointing cups of Nescafé, served as though the tasteless dissolving granules of instant coffee were a delicacy, Alexis felt no cup of coffee had ever tasted as powerful and delicious as this. It seemed that nobody had the heart to tell the Greeks that Nescafé was no longer a novelty – it was this old-fashioned thick and treacly fluid that everyone, including her, craved.”

– VICTORIA HISLOP –

Greece has got something like 1,400 islands. There is so much of Greece you can’t know even if you’re Greek. It’s sprinkled out all around the edge of the Aegean, all over the place. It’s already a secret place wherever you go, even if it’s somewhere huge like Athens or Corinth. The place enchanted me.

– JOANNA LUMLEY –

Mylopotamos beach, Greece.

If you deconstruct Greece, you will, in the end, see an olive tree, a grapevine, and a boat remain. That is, with as much, you reconstruct her.

– ODYSSEAS ELYTIS –

The light of Greece opened my eyes, penetrated my pores, expanded my whole being.

– HENRY MILLER –

“There were mountains; there were valleys; there were streams. She climbed the mountains; roamed the valleys; sat on the banks of streams…..when, from the mountain-top, she beheld, far off, across the Sea of Marmara the plains of Greece, and made out (her eyes were admirable) the Acropolis with a white streak or two which must, she thought, be the Parthenon, her soul expanded with her eyeballs, and she prayed she might share the majesty of the hills, know the serenity of the plains, etc. etc., as all such believers do.”

– VIRGINIA WOOLF –

Greece was a muse. It inspired creativity in magical ways that I can’t even begin to understand or explain.

– JOE BONAMASSA –

And then God said: Let there be Greece.

– UNKNOWN –

Among all peoples, Greeks have dreamt life’s dream most beautifully.

– WOLFGANG GOETHE –

“Today, to walk along the pebbled pathways of a traditional Greek mountain village or the marbled streets of an ancient acropolis is to step back in time. To meander at a leisurely pace through these island chains by boat is to be captivated by the same dramatic landscapes and enchanted islets that make the myths of ancient Greece so compelling. To witness the Mediterranean sun setting on the turquoise sea is to receive one of life’s greatest blessings.”

– LAURA BROOKS –

I want to have an” eat, pray, love” experience where I drop off the face of the planet and move to Greece.

– JENNIFER HYMAN –

There are two kinds of people. Greeks, and everyone else who wish they was Greek.

– MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING –

I hope nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.

– NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS –

Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the souls.

– DEMOCRITUS –

I wish you joy. To spend life’s fleeting days mid joy that never meets an evil hour is to be blessed beyond compare.

– EURIPIDES –

Enthusiasm is a wonderful thing. In South Africa, they throw flowers at you. In Greece, Greeks throw themselves.

– MELINA MERCOURI –

Silence is true wisdom’s best reply.

– EURIPIDES –

The only thing I know is this: I am full of wounds and still standing on my feet.

– NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS –

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

– AESOP –

The ancient Oracle said that I was the wisest of all Greeks. It is because I alone, of all the Greeks, know that I know nothing.

– SOCRATES –

For the wise, it is easy to go anywhere. Because the whole world is home for a good soul.

– DEMOCRITUS –

Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didn’t see their thoughts as belonging to them. When ancient Greeks had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was telling them to fall in love. Now people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips and rush out to buy, but now they call this free will. At least the ancient Greeks were being honest.

– CHUCK PALAHNIUK–

In many ways, we are all sons and daughters of ancient Greece.

– NIA VARDALOS –

Do not spoil what you have, by desiring what you have not. Remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.

– EPICURUS –

If in the library of your house, you do not have the works of the ancient Greek writers, then you live in a house with no light.

– GEORGE BERNARD SHAW –

In a way, it’s nice to know that there are Greek gods out there because you have somebody to blame when things go wrong.

– RICK RIORDAN –

I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else.

– NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS –

The man is happiest who lives from day to day and asks no more, garnering the simple goodness of life.

– EURIPIDES –

Alcohol makes other people less tedious, and food less bland, and can help provide what the Greeks call entheos, or the slight buzz of inspiration when reading or writing.

– CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS –

Whatever is good to know, is difficult to learn.

– GREEK PROVERB –

Experience, travel – these are as education in themselves.

– EURIPEDES –

Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality.

– NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS –

Greece is a good place for rebirths.

– JUDITH MARTIN –

Let no one think of me that I am humble or weak or passive. Let them understand that I am of a different kind: dangerous to my enemies, loyal to my friends. To such a life glory belongs.

– EURIPIDES –

One of the first lessons of life in Greece is that everything is difficult and nothing is impossible.

– JOHN MOLE –

Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.

– ARISTOTLE –

In Greece, people have a quality of life. People here live beautifully.

– OTTO REHHAGEL –

The beginning is the most important part of the work.

– PLATO –

There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.

– SOCRATES –

Strength and beauty are the blessings of youth. Temperance, however, is the flower of old age.

– DEMOCRITUS –

Choose rather to be strong of soul than strong of body.

– PYTHAGORAS –

Beware the barrenness of a busy life.

– SOCRATES –

Happiness depends upon ourselves.

– ARISTOTLE –

The unexamined life is not worth living.

– SOCRATES –

Wisdom should be cherished as a means of traveling from youth to old age, for it is more lasting than any other possession.

– BIAS OF PRIENE –

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

– ARISTOTLE –

He is the richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.

– SOCRATES –

Of all things which wisdom provides to make life entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship.

– EPICURUS –

Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.

– ARISTOTLE –

Gemista, a famous vegan Greek dish.

Greeks use food for everyday gatherings. Cooking is a big part of our lives. We want to show people our hospitality.

– IOANNA HAWKINS –

Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.

– HIPPOCRATES –

If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.

– J.R.R. TOLKIEN –

I believe that the primary justice is the fair distribution of bread.

– YANNIS RITSOS –

If you go back to the Greeks and Romans, they talk about all three – wine, food and art – as a way of enhancing life.

– ROBERT MONDAVI –

Τα ρακοπότηρα δεν πλένονται (you never wash a raki glass).

– MARO DOUKA –

My mom always cooked healthy. Greek food lends itself to cooking healthy.

– CAT CORA –

Get ready for wine, raki, and getting hand-fed by strangers.

– ANTHONY BOURDAIN –

To win the people, always cook them some savoury that pleases them.

– ARISTOPHANES –

A lucky person is someone who plants pebbles and harvests potatoes.

– GREEK PROVERB –

“Red or white wine and local draught beer were the only drink choices. The sound of chatter and laughter from the other diners rang out around the restaurant and among the tables on the terrace.
The food was served on long, grey stone tables and benches, which somehow gave it all a medieval and magical feel.”

– SUE ROBERTS –

Sunrises in Pelion, Greece.

“According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs, and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.”

– PLATO –

Friends show their love in times of trouble, not happiness.

– EURIPIDES –

I watched you with all the light and darkness that I have.

– GIORGOS SEFERIS –

You don’t develop courage by being happy in your relationships every day. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.

– EPICURUS –

Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.

– PLATO –

Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.

– ARISTOTLE –

There is the heat of love, the pulsing rush of Longing, the lover’s whisper, irresistible – magic to make the sanest man go mad.

– HOMER –

We were like gods at the dawning of the world and our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other.

– MADELINE MILLER –

We were like gods at the dawning of the world and our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other.

– MADELINE MILLER –

You’re my star, a stargazer too, and I wish that I were Heaven, with a billion eyes to look at you.

– PLATO –

We must free ourselves of the hope that the sea will ever rest. We must learn to sail in high winds.

– ARISTOTLE –

Happy is the man, I thought, who, before dying, has the good fortune to sail the Aegean sea.

– NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS –

I’m looking at the sea on the wall, and even though it’s a copy of a copy of the Aegean, I wish you would grab me and take me to Greece.

– ANALICIA SOTELO –

One of the purest joys that man can afford in this world is to visit the Aegean Sea in the spring, with a breath of light breeze; I have never been able to imagine paradise in any other way. This joy grows right upside down, but God does not allow it to escalate so that the beloved visible world does not disappear with it, on the contrary, the invisible world becomes visible, and what we call God and eternal life and bliss join us on the ship and accompany us on the voyage. In the bitter hour of your death, close your eyes, and you will see Santorini, Naxos, Paros, Mykonos.

– NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS –

It was no half-hearted spring, this: the whole island (Corfu) vibrated with it as though a great ringing chord had been struck. Everyone and everything heard it and responded.

– GERALD DURRELL –

As you set out for Ithaca, hope your road is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery.

– KONSTANTINOS KAVAFIS –

The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece! Where burning Sappho loved and sung, Where grew the arts of war and peace, Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung! Eternal summer gilds them yet, But all, except their sun is set.

– LORD BYRON –

My childhood in Corfu shaped my life. If I had the craft of Merlin, I would give every child the gift of my childhood.

– GERARD DURRELL –

Going over to Lesvos in Greece and meeting some of these poor refugees who have just made the treacherous sea crossing opened my eyes in a way I can’t even begin to describe. It’s put a fire in my belly to really try to do something, the little I can do.

– DOUGLAS BOOTH –

On a summer night, I have sat on the balcony drinkingOuzo, watching the ghosts of Greek Heroes sailing past, listening to the rustle of their sail cloths and the gentle lapping of their oars… and lain alongside Pythagoras watching him study the myriad of triangles in the constellations twinkling above us. Whether it was Crete, the heat, the Ouzo, or a combination, it is unequaled anywhere other than Santorini, in my humble opinion.

– PHIL SIMPKIN –

Unless you have seen the houses of Mykonos, you can’t pretend to be an architect. Whatever architecture has to say, it is said here.

– LE CORBUSIER –

The beauty in front of her interrupted her thoughts. She took a deep breath staring at the shores of Mykonos with the scenic coves and the golden sand beaches.

-ANGEL SEFER –

The island has magical landscapes and a special energy coming from the sea, the winds, and the land that can’t be found elsewhere.

– EUGENIE NIARCHOS –

Some places, such as Paris, have a magic best experienced for brief periods so the romantic feeling doesn’t become tainted by a day-to-day reality. But Mykonos was different in that respect. Mykonos made you long for the restful, happy day-to-day reality of life on the Greek island, and it was the brief visits that tortured the soul. Paris was a romantic respite from life, Mykonos was life itself, and living.

– BOBBY UNDERWOOD –

I felt like a pilgrim upon a rare and spiritual planet landing the soil of Mykonos, I ensured it could give me a high inspiration for a next new epic, which was machining inside my inner brains.

– UNKNOWN –

We’re often wrong at predicting who or what will transform us. Encountering certain people, books, music, places, or ideas at just the right time can immediately make our lives happier, richer, more beautiful, resonant, or meaningful. When it happens, we feel a kind of instant love for them, both deep and abiding. Now and then it can be something as trifling as a children’s book, a returned telephone call, or a night at a seaside bar in Mykonos.

– JONATHAN CARROLL –

And you will go to Mykonos, with a vision of a gentle coast, and a sun to maybe dissipate, shadows of the mess you made.

– FLEET FOXES –

There is a kind of flame in Crete – let us call it “soul” – something more powerful than either life or death. There is pride, obstinacy, valor, and together with these something else inexpressible and imponderable, something which makes you rejoice that you are a human being, and at the same time tremble.

– NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS –

Maybe I’ll go to Amsterdam, or maybe I’ll go to Rome, and rent me a grand piano and put some flowers ’round my room, but let’s not talk about fare-thee-wells now, the night is a starry dome, and they’re playin’ that scratchy rock and roll, beneath the Matala Moon.”

– JONI MITCHELL –

An ardent desire to go took possession of me once more. Not because I wanted to leave – I was quite all right on this Cretan coast and felt happy and free there and I needed nothing – but because I have always been consumed with one desire; to touch and see as much as possible of the earth and the sea before I die.

– NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS –

I wonder if Socrates and Plato took a house on Crete during the summer.

– WOODY ALLEN –

I knew that no matter what door you knock on in a Cretan village, it will be opened for you. A meal will be served in your honor, and you will sleep between the best sheets in the house. In Crete, the stranger is still the unknown god. Before him, all doors and all hearts are opened.

– NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS –

At Athens, wise men prosper and fools dispose.

– ALUIN –

Earth proudly wears the Parthenon as the best gem upon her zone.

– RALPH WALDO EMERSON –

Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts and eloquence, native to famous wits.

– JOHN MILTON –

Of the many smells of Athens two seem to be the most characteristic – that of garlic, bold and deadly like acetylene gas. and that of dust, soft and warm and caressing like tweed.

– EVELYN WAUGH –

When the city comes alive with the evening song, we dance in the shadow of the great Parthenon.

– GIANNIS GEORGANTELIS –

The Greeks had invented democracy, built the Acropolis, and called it a day.

– DAVID SEDARIS –

Maid of Athens, ere we part, give, oh, give me back my heart!

– LORD BYRON –

– NIKOS KAVVADIAS –

– A.O. TANER –

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• January 28, 2023